Appa's Defenders
by Omniflyer
Summary: “Don’t you know fans just make flames stronger?” [Quickfic, Ep. 36 spoiler]


_Short spoiler quickfic based on Avatar episode 36, _Appa's Lost Days. _Don't say you weren't warned!_

* * *

"Don't you know fans just make flames stronger?"

"Don't you know you _talk too much?_" Suki retorted, fan whirling down in a diagonal arc, whizzing through thin air as Azula's lithe frame made a sudden dodge to the side. In a flash, almost too quickly to react to, Azula countered with a whirling kick with her left foot that Suki knocked aside with her shield, but Azula read her move and fired azure lightning from her right hand. Suki saw the move coming, and whirled counter-clockwise away from the attack. Again, her fan lashed out, and again Azula pulled away to avoid the ornate weapon in timely fashion.

Azula was frowning now. "You cost me a bison, fangirl."

Suki decided not to answer as her Fire Nation foe was forcing the attack again, this time with more standard firebending attacks. First came a slicing kick that erupted flame, then a quick two-punch combination, and finally a blazing roundhouse. Suki used her shield against the slicing wave, ducked under the first punched fireball and rolled away from the second, but barely got her shield back up in time to deflect the roundhouse inferno, and so it forced her back a fair distance, until she rolled to a stop some feet away.

Suki used her extra distance to her advantage. While rolling, she prepared her fan to be used as its projectile form, and the moment her roll was broken, she used whatever spinning momentum she had left to whirl the fan in a deadly throwing arc toward Azula. The princess knocked it aside with an almost casual wave of her flamethrowing hand, then relaunched her offensive with several more waves of fire.

Suki rolled over a few and blocked others, but took one particularly nasty wave of fire directly, and rose again favouring her left arm noticeably. In between fireballs, she looked around to the rest of her party, but she wouldn't be getting much help. She could see one of each of her teammates battling the other two– the narrow-eyed cold one and the apparently slow-witted agile one– but couldn't see where the others were. They couldn't have been dispatched already...

"You're really starting to disappoint me," Azula spat, brow now lowered over her inability to hit the warrior. "If you're not going to beat me, hurry up and die."

Suki growled lowly. As much as she hated to admit it, it wasn't looking like she was going to beat her, and her team was slowly being whittled down from the glances she could steal... it was a bad situation. "Sorry, but I don't quite feel like–" Any further words were drowned out by a flurry of fire raining from Azula's calm style.

Suki rolled, side-stepped, blocked, parried... any and all defensive moves were employed, but Azula had her at such a range that she could no longer get in for an attack. Suddenly, the offensive colour shifted from a glowing red to a frightening blue. The lightning assault was back on. The rolls and side-steps were slowing down, but so were the attacks; they became slower, but more accurate and deadly. Suki's shield was starting to smoulder under the heat. _A few more shots... _she realized, thinking wryly, _and I won't have to worry about helping Sok– the Avatar, anymore._

But the wheels started turning in Suki's head. The time between attacks... the range of the lightning... and the time taken to switch from the hand sign to focus the energy into lightning back into throwing normal fire...

That was her opening.

Azula fire blue lightning again, and Suki charged, sidestepping, then leaping into a roll to dodge the second, and the time between each bolt was just enough that she had time to prepare for the next. The third bolt came in, and she got her shield in the way; it blew clear off her arm, but didn't damage her, and the bolt had ended.

Suki charged in, closer, closer... Azula tilted an eyebrow that an all-out offensive was getting this close to her, but she was surely too close, now. Suki was within six feet, five... four...

"_Die,_" Azula commanded, and extended two fingers, charged with lightning, and bended outwards; the lightning arced towards Suki's chest–

She ducked!

Suki got just under the bolt, and it fired off harmlessly into the trees! Too quickly for Azula to move, Suki grabbed her wrist to immobilize her predominant lightning-bending arm and pushed it aside. "What's wrong?" She came in with her right hand, fanless, but ready with the open fist style, throwing her fingers straight and hard to Azula's neck. "_Nothing left to say?_"

_Crack._

..._thud._

Suki hit the ground hard. Her vision swam, and she struggled to rise again, but Azula, indignant at almost having lost, swung a powerful kick at her head, catching her in the temple and sending her flying, completely knocked out.

Ty Lee stood beside her, landing after her aerobatic and speedy drop kick, having bounded off a nearby tree and gotten the drop on Suki after an aerial assault. "Fangirls are so much better unconscious, don't you think?" Azula didn't reply, and moved toward Suki's prone form. Flame started dancing around her fist.

"Azula," Mai said, her usual calm manner soothing the princess' profound annoyance. "Don't kill that one." Azula kept walking forward, but raised an eyebrow. "There's an obvious connection between the Avatar's bison and one of these girls, probably this one since she spoke the most. If we can't use the bison to lure him out, we can certainly use this one, instead." The flames around Azula's fist flickered more furiously for a moment, then went out entirely.

"Mai," Azula said, "take the girl. We're going back."

"Ty Lee," Mai said, "take the girl. We're going back."

"Hee... fangirl," Ty Lee said, grabbing Suki by the ankles and dragging her to her steed.

"We'll interrogate this one tonight when she wakes up," Azula said. "From there we'll plan our next move."

"What about the remaining five?" Mai asked. "They might make a rescue attempt later on."

Azula fired more lightning backward. The forest began to go up in flames around the five prone bodies scattered about in varying levels of injury.

"No. Somehow, I don't think they will."


End file.
